Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

[ertyu]

Not very, and usually don't feel it unless I compare myself to you. I mean it only took you 40 years to stop whining about your daddy and move out. Compared to you an amoeba is fucking exceptional. Jesus man, Why don't you take some of that anger out on he who deserves it (cough cough daddy issues)? If you're trying to learn how to stop being a whimpering man-baby by denigrating me constantly, then you'd better do it in person.

Off-topic to the thread, so let's either stop here or take it to DM, but: trying to use the fact that someone has been vulnerable in an effort to get their thoughts together and get support in order to strike against them in a fight? Doesn't make you a good person. Said it to Jason, will say it to you, too: men like you are the reason why men with depression keep shit inside and kill themselves instead of being vulnerable with others and asking for help.

[chenda]

The country isn't safe now.
edit: I'm not even including the way France reacted to Covid, but that was a trigger for many, some literally filled their car and drove overnight to Prag without a complete plan.

Funny because I know a number of people here who got the overnight ferry to France because they preferred lockdown a la campagne than here.

[Jean]

A lot of French aren't lucky enough to own a country house to spend the lockdown in. I can imagine that the french countryside is a better place to be locked in than a british city. Many french who do own a house moved to the country side for the lockdowns. Do you know anyone who took the ferry to go to Paris for the lock down?
Otoh hand people were fine in Bucarest.

[chenda]

A lot of French aren't lucky enough to own a country house to spend the lockdown in.

Sure, but I wouldn't classify France as particularly unsafe. Eastern Europe is definitely a mixed bag to say the least (e.g. the Baltic states compared to the authoritarianism of Hungry and Poland) Each to there own.

[Jean]

Autoritharian like in using drone to arrest people who are hiking? Or fining people walking in the streets? Or Putting writters in jail? Or trying to forbid people to film the police? Or limiting the protection offered by freespeech law to carded journalist (who now have to register at the police to cover protest).
I agree that the new polish abortion ban looks stupid, but at the moment, France looks much more authoritarian.

[chenda]

Autoritharian like in using drone to arrest people who are hiking? Or fining people walking in the streets? Or Putting writters in jail? Or trying to forbid people to film the police? Or limiting the protection offered by freespeech law to carded journalist (who now have to register at the police to cover protest).

I don't neccessarily have a problem with any of this (enforcing Corona lockdown was entirely reasonable imo) and anyway its unlikely to directly impact the lives of most citizens or residents. I don't see any mass exodus of elites from France happening anytime soon, long term I think the reverse will happen. That said, you are probably better off in Switzerland. I agree parts of eastern Europe also have their appeal.

[7Wannabe5]

Then again, the complexity of an electronic interface and assorted sensors is much greater than an automobile with a gas engine. I mean I know there would be some soldering involved, but I don't think pieces are designed to be modular? Are there any good books on jerry-rigging electronics in this kind of way?

Thanks for the link to the video about Ernesto Oroza and "technological disobedience" in Cuba. Very interesting. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a copy of "With Our Own Hands" in English. I also downloaded a copy of the government manual you linked.

I am just learning about practical electronics ( I did attend engineering school for a couple years so the theory isn't entirely new to me), but there is obvious modularity at the level of the breadboard. However, as Jacob noted, the components you attach to the breadboard may be complete black boxes to you. I don't know if there are any good books on jerry-rigging electronics, but I just downloaded sample copies of "How to Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic" by Geier and "Hacking Electronics" by Monk, so I will try to find out. Obviously, there are also many YouTube videos on this topic.

My personal strategy is to rely as little on electronics as possible. I try (not very hard though) to stay at a pre-1930s(*) tech level as much as possible. This means a preference for no plastics and no ICs whenever possible. (Obviously that's not the case for my computer ... but here I try to sink as little money into as possible ... make it as replaceable as possible. I basically think of them as "consumables" rather than tool assets.)

(*) Why this time period? Because you could mostly understand the function [of the gadget] by visual inspection and improvise suitable replacements with "household" tools.

I agree that 1930s seems about right. However, I think this is a much more squishy rule of thumb than using $$$ spent as proxy for energy used/CO2 emisssions. The two primary reasons (which I'm sure you already know) why I think it is squishy are:

1) The way material is distributed around our world in 2020 is very different than it was in 1930 (or any prior era.) For instance, we are already post-peak on steel production and there are huge piles of discarded plastic available. Trying to follow the directions to construct a radio from a 1930s book for boys is like trying to cook from a recipe in an 1880s cookbook. I can't find a wooden cigar box in a discard pile or buy a brace of fresh quail at my local market. The copper that was in a copper mine in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is never going back into that mine. So, for this reason it would be more difficult to recreate 1930s lifestyle in post-collapse 2030s. It would take more energy to do it now than it took to do it then.

2) There has been a great deal of contingency in the history of invention. In the very fun book "How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler" by Ryan North, he constructs a chart called the Technology Tree which shows which prior technologies were necessary pre-condition for any other technology. Many technologies could have been invented and/or adopted up to millennia before they actually were. Therefore, although history places the invention of the radio at 1895 (prior to 1930) and the invention of the first motion detector at 1950 (after 1930), it is still possible that there was no technological barrier to inventing a motion detector in the 1930s. So, for this reason it might be easier to recreate aspects of technology that did not exist in 1930s at a level that is still human or watershed size community scale. For instance, there is no reason except lack of knowledge why Mark Boyle or his professional dancer GF couldn't have made a simple solar powered radio so she could have music to dance to instead of just using a harmonica or a guitar.

Anyways, I hang around with a bunch of grouchy old frugal Midwestern engineers, so maybe hacking technological stuff seems more possible to me than others. For instance, my sister, who like me only has a couple years of engineering school, made an animatronic drumming bear that played along with her band and my "ex" knew how to fix things made out of plastic and my old housemate had a Tesla coil he put out at Halloween.

Also, it is my plan to start with breadboard/black-box-components level electronics, because I know that I can make that work, and then expand out into more hacked solutions. Best analogy I can come up with is how you can eventually achieve a level of cooking competence that transcends the limitations of either an 1880s cookbook and/or the sort of annoying hyper-modern cookbook that demands very specialized ingredients. You eventually get to "something that I have on hand that will make this cookie crispy."

[Alphaville]

Yeah, but that's not COLLAPSE collapse. Maybe I've watched too many post-apocalyptic movies. Like I can just move somewhere else? So what?

oh, "the big one". that might happen some day i suppose, yeah. but most people die in a thousand papercuts kind of scenario.

[jacob]

@7wb5 - To be more precise, I try to limit my level of technology advance to the electro-mechanical stage, where the most advanced tech will be a motor with a switch driving a mechanical linkage made out of metal. At some point I stopped before that (nothing electric) but now I understand motors well enough to replace them (not repair them). Ideally I'd like to be at a point where loss of electricity for days or weeks would be a nothing-burger in the face of that setup in the same way that COVID was a nothing-burger in the face of the current setup.

Personal strategies always get weird in that they have a hard time predicting what kind of environment they will exist in. For example, I think by the time that collapse is serious, the global demand for phds will have dried up as money gets diverted to damage control. Radio receivers will be void since nobody is transmitting much if anything. My fascination with building clocks will be useless because nobody will care about exact time anymore. But for now they remain curious interests that develop other skills. Just like being prepared for an earthquake means that you're prepared for most other disasters, building a clock, a radio, or a dissertation means that you're capable of many other things.

[Alphaville]

@7wb5 - To be more precise, I try to limit my level of technology advance to the electro-mechanical stage

interesting idea. this might simplify power production requirements to basic dynamos with loose performance standards over the tight requirements of electronics circuits....

(im interested in power production skills over power consumption skills assuming no public utilities. without that, consumption is moot.)

clock mechanism: low-power windup generator for sensitive electronics??

[J_]

@7wb5 - To be more precise, I try to limit my level of technology advance to the electro-mechanical stage, where the most advanced tech will be a motor with a switch driving a mechanical linkage made out of metal.

I focus on the same but (mostly) on lower voltage =<12 V. In such a way I can: use my home-build electrical generating bicycle for reloading used car-batteries, I can use my solar panels for doing the same. All in case there is a shortage in electrical power. Also for entertainment I use a 12 V disk-player. I plan to buy second hand 12 V drilling machine and other useful 12 V equipment. For drilling in wood or very thin drilling in iron I have also the classic tools which use only manpower.

[7Wannabe5]

@jacob:

Do you think your strategy would vary if, for instance, SClass lived in your watershed community? Otherwise, I think we are on the same page. I just like thinking about stuff like how very simple logic gates could be applied to moving chicken tractors. Also, my note on personality applies, because I probably think that there will be people producing radio broadcasts because I am more talkative than you.

@Alphaville:

Why not simple batteries?

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2013 ... -the-world

Another interesting thing to think about is that information which requires energy is the ultimate limiting factor to gathering up the basic materials you might need. For instance, the knowledge that living creatures naturally tend towards consolidating metals due to their proven evolutionary benefit might prove useful. That's how Primitive Technology guy moved himself up to Iron Age. Almost everything relevant to technology is modeled somehow in nature.

[Alphaville]

@Alphaville:

Why not simple batteries?

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2013 ... -the-world

oooooh helllllllll yeahhhhhh....!

[7Wannabe5]

@J:

How long do you have to bicycle in order to charge your batteries? It might be more efficient to just use the potatoes you would have to eat as power source OTOH, up to two hours of manual labor/day is definitely beneficial to the complex system which is the human body*, so riding an exercise bike to power batteries is obviously better than just wasting the effort, unless you have a potato field which needs digging. etc.

*Note to self!

[jacob]

@7wb5 - Any solution is a combination of skill, tools, and parts/resources. I think the latter is often forgotten as people learn skills and gather tools but figure the parts and materials will always be available just in time. I therefore aim at technology where parts are easy to make and substituteable. For example, the parts of a hand-powered crank can be made out of almost any material. Nitpicking aside, most parts of a potato battery LED lighting system can not.

We're likely to end up with a bunch of overskilled people fighting over the last piece of scrap for parts. The conclusion I derive from "For lack of a nail ... the kingdom was lost" is that a lot of skill is often held back from application for want of some spare part needing to be sourced from a rather complex supply chain. That was my main lesson when I was repairing bikes. A problem that I could fix with 5 minutes of wrenching often had to wait 2--3 weeks to order and deliver the correct part. Eventually I started ordering doubles of everything so I had the part for next time.

However, my preferred solution to keeping a personal parts inventory is being able to make those parts and part of being able to do that robustly is making sure that the parts are not too exotic. Wood is more easily found than copper wire, for example.

[Jean]

I completly agréé with you. In a way, telling people to focus on skills acquisition is just a way of making skills cheaper, thus increasing the profit one Can make by controlling ressources.

[fiby41]

I know of a girl who escaped Venezuela prior to total collapse,... She was a dentist in Venezuela but was unable to find similar employment in the USA without attending dental school again.

My mother had to redo her MA here because the one she got in USSR/Russia when it was collapsing did not count.

---
There was a famine every ~11 years during the 129 years of British occupation so present is certainly better. As for the future, both on city and subcontinent level I'm surrounded by 25% (1 in 4; totaling half a billion; 200M in Pak, 150M each in Bangla and here) adherents of a religion that takes easily to mindless violence.

[Alphaville]

However, my preferred solution to keeping a personal parts inventory is being able to make those parts and part of being able to do that robustly is making sure that the parts are not too exotic. Wood is more easily found than copper wire, for example.

so, then, neolitic tech? wood, bone, stone, ceramic and fiber?

[Alphaville]

it occurs to me one could layer up said skills from the "primitive" to the "developed" so as to allow for "graceful degradation" under variable scarcity conditions.

e.g. it's ok to learn digital communication and electric vehicle repair if you can also ride a horse or train homing pigeons or flag semaphore.

[7Wannabe5]

@jacob:

I agree on general principles. That’s why my ultimate goal is to make a radio from nature. However, I think there are too many metal tools that are pretty darn necessary; shovel, knife, plumbing fixtures, etc to fret over holding on to a bit of copper wire. Smelting is obviously pretty core on the technology tree skills list.

@Alphaville:

Yes, that’s kind of how I think about it too. Given two decent and one crappy solar acre and your share of post apocalypse garbage pile, how much quality of life can you skill or trade up to? What if you can only trade knowledge over boundary? Is this exercise easier if you consider yourself as member of your watershed community rather than individual or household? Etc.

Of course, it will not be the case that land/resources/shares of garbage heap will be equitably divvied up during any sort of collapse. Obviously, if we are already collapsing, all of us here are already hoarding huge stockpiles under contracts protected by our nation state county city warlords, since an acre of land only goes for around $5000 plus around $5000 for every functional electrical outlet on that acre ( best current estimate of technological dimension or development value.)